Magic Lamps

This would be so fun. Leverkusen have been monitoring him for months. Their fans already got excited that they were getting him, then he got linked with him which would have made him unreachable. Consequently it was revealed that we never really were interested, so their hopes got up again. Now it looks like Leicester City's superior financial power will snatch him from under their noses. Symptomatically,the 17th best club in the epl can easily outdo a German CL team.

This. In the modern game, its the fullbacks who create width, the are no classical wingers anymore. Unfortunately azpi isn pegged to the byline most of the time as he has to protect terry.

Who do you have in mind? The market is rather short on 26 y.o. proven defenders...But I agree. Stones has only little more than half a season in a top league under his belt. Not even in this crazy market that warrants 40+m . I amsure we will easily get him for the same amount in 2-3 years if we still need him then.

Cahill's injury shows why we need another defender or rather two. Another injury to a defender and we have to play a youth/loan player there.

I had the same thought. At Monaco he starts next to toulalan and mourinho-wants-one-more-signing who made very similar to matic and fabregas. Would be a balanced mid I hope for the opposiye would be great. He is very different to mikel thoug. Far more adventurous with his dribbling.Pasalic is tall, quick, decent strength, a very good dribbler already, confident on the ball. His passing, goalscoring and tackling look promising but require some further development. Surely one step ahead of rlc tho.

This feels darn early. Only 3 preaseason games and like two weeks after our players return to training. But whatevs. This is a London Derby and should be treated like a cup final as it represents the first big game of the season. I trust Remy on this one if Costa is not fit. We have a good chance of winning this, surely have enough practice of penalties but we should go for it in normal time. Arsenal are strong esp now they have a great goalie but we should still be a bit ahead. Then team pretty much picks itself in the back 5. I am pretty sure though that José will sacrifice Oscar for Ramy or even Mikel as it is a big game. Once again the need for a decent, defensively astute cm is apparent.

Me 2. I think we will sign one or two defenders. But what we need most is a solid all-round midfielder. Ideally he should be big, fast, defensively astute and score goals. Unfortunately Mou does not agree. Also it is not like those players don't grow on trees. Actually I can think of none who ticks all boxes. Vidal and Witsel would have been close but mou obviously rates neither.

I know this is only preseason and it should not be overrated etc. But why the hell are we always so much worse than most other teams in preseason?

Does anyone have a decent stream that is not lagging all the time?

Mou has already confirmed, he will be sold. It will be an absolute farce if all what Jose says is true and we are signing no one as replacment. btw rumours are we have signed bettinelli from fulham. wtf another goalie?

Brana was never great at rightback. He has his moments. but he had always had lapses in concentration. No 21 y.o. with only one decent season under his belt that costs in excess of 20m € can be called "underrated". Bertrand for 10m was underrated. He himself said that he should still be here. He never wanted to leave but was forced to.

They probably will fall behind this season, but it doesn't matter. The new TV deal makes the EPL clubs earn 4x more than Bundesliga clubs from broadcasting. By now already, English relegatiion zoners have way more financial power than German CL competitors. In the future this will even amplify. In 5-10 years it will not matter how dumb the English purchases and tactics are, all talent in Europe will simply evade German clubs and join the better paying English ones so the EPL for all it's naive tactics and short-sighted overpaid transfers has no other choice to become the undisputed no.1 league again.

Would have been a humiliation otherwise. How did they even qualify for the EL? Lemme guess some BS like fair play ranking.

Never said he was shite. He is good, no doubt but I just wonder whether this will be enough. We lost Bertrand because we signed Filipe, now we sell Filipe and replace him with this guy. It is not his fault, but I am a bit frustrated with how we handled this situation. Especially selling Bertrand so cheap.

Very decent salary, somehow remedies the outrageous pricetag. Not that we don't have the money, we surely have but that is like 28m €, the 5th most expensive foreign signing of a Bundesliga player ever. Right now he is just above average imo, especially defensivelyhe has to improve. Surely not the level of Bertrand or Luis yet. Not sure if he will ever reach that level at all.

Yeah but why? We are filthy rich. We don't even need to spend big. There are a lot of decent players that would improve us, like Witsel, Aranguiz, Pedro out there for decent prices. Because of the EPL TV deal we won't have to worry about money in the future. Even teams like Hull, Burnley or Crystal Palace can outbid a German CL-team like Gladbach or Leverkusen with ease. We made 100m from TV money this season alone +40m yokohame + the adidas kit deal + luis sale. that should cover the wages. So we can reinvest the major part of all merchandising and ticket revenues, which should be about 200m every year withour making a loss. What can that be? it is definitely not some marquee signings. Those are cheaper earlier in the market and if we had someone in the bag it would have been already done. It is obviously not down to money, it is not that we have to pay the stadium in one year.

He die cost 6m € in the first place from sigma Olomouc. We should at least recoup that. Or give him a chance. Every time he played he bossed it. Suarez was the best player in the world at the time we played them and he had him in his pocket all day long. Sth. Boateng, Thiago Silva, Kompany failed to, regardless of tactics

24.5m for him is the bargain of the decade. Why did Juve sell him so cheap? I have heard from a tifosi that Juve think there is an issue with his knee and that if his antics will get the better of him at Bayern too. Also he badly wanted to go there. But I am not so sure. Bayern have the BuLI in the bag already so they can keep Vidal fresh for the CL. Also nightlife in Munich is so boring, he might discipline himself.

Has always been a decent player. But has stagnated since we signed him. Always had great potential but never quite got the finishing touches to his all-round play. This is probably his last chance to make it here. Would surprise me. But if he did, Jose would make us all look hasty for demanding Am squad signings.

Still very raw. Played a couple of nice passes and has the confidence to shoot himself. Needs some work on his ball control, dribbling and movement. Remy should have scored from his great second-time cross though. Maybe it is only me but he is a lot like Schürrle, very direct.

I only saw the highlights but IMO he wasn't entirely shite. More like extremely unlucky and lacking sharpness. The equalizer was entirely the fault of the backline playing useless 5m square passes when pressed and of course Terry's lack of concentration or anticipation. In situations like this you should either make an opening pass early on hoof it forward/make the goalie hoof it forward instead of waiting till the spaces get so tight that an error is more likely. When Begovic made the tackle in 8/10 situation the ball ricochets out of the danger area but he was unlucky that the attacker got a strong foot to the rebound. But Begovic had no other choice than storm out of goal there and go for the slide as it was a backpass. For the 2nd and 3rd goal he was wihtout a chance because of our defence's horrible positioning. Terry is somehow screening Zouma, whilst Traore is at CB and not catching the attacker's run. Also for the 4th goal, Terry is in no man's land, Ramires takes his position and makes a horrible clearance. The shot is straight at Begovic but from short distance. On a good day he keeps that one out.

Never mind the result of those crappy pre season games after a late start to training. But did the game give any useful insights? HOw about Traore and Moses. Is it possible we might have underestimated them? How about the Zouma-Cahill partnership? Not sure if serious... Lampard plays for New York City FC not Red Bulls.

My thoughts exactly. From the beginning of the transfer window, there has been a consent under us fans that we need reinforcements. No major ones but some tuning of the squad here and there. But your brilliant graphic points it out, one after another have been erased by Mou. Now, when JOse also has sold Luis. He does not want to replace him. I mean what the fuck? azpi and Iva have been tired anyways while Luis has not been used enough and now, they have to split his minutes between them with no single reinforcement on that positions, ake even loaned out? Mou has stated again and again that we aim to maintain the status quo. But given how much all our rivals have strengthened whilst we have possibly decreased our depth and quality this sounds like the receipt to certain failure. Not that I would have a problem with a season of modest success whilst promoting youth. But we all know this is not gonna happen. Some of our most promising youngster have already been loaned out. Even Zouma will not see much time when we also sign Stones, who imo should be further down the priority list given our lack of fullbacks and quality CMs. Those statements, that we don't need any players sound so defeatist. And that is so not Mou. I dunno. His reluctance to rotate properly has cost us already but it seems getting worse. Chelsea sits on a shitload of money that is only getting bigger. Maybe there are bigger plans like a new stadium that will cost a lot, but surely this should not stop of from making a few quality signings. Given many of those are also available to a decent price. Vidal left for ridiculous 24.5m pound. That is peanuts for CFC. Witsel would cost a similar amount. But no. Not even Aranguiz for a meagre 15m. The financial risks of those signings would be so low, in the worst case we would have another option for the bench if they don't work out. Quite simply , as of now we got like a dozen quality players and a few average ones but still many squad places to fill, so whether the signings are expensive or not, first team or squad fillers, the only mistake we can make is not to buy and guess what, this is what we do. I think we as fans, who worry about the club deserve an honest answer why the heck we are behaving like morons on the transfer market.

22.9m sound reasonable for s.o. of his quality. I just wonder whether we will sign him despite no cm leaving. Really should to have a chance of retaining the league. Without a major signing I doubt we will win a major trophy with our rivals strengthening like this. Witsel will not be the difference to do but he is exactly the kind of option for the league

Having thought about this for 3 days now, I have still have not found a different way to pronounce Witsel that does not sound completely braindead. Honestly I have no clue what can possibly go wrong pronoucing that name. I think even people in East Germany or Bavaria would get this right.